Life and Suchlike

IV

I have often pondered the consequence of writing about Calcutta on cocaine. The city lends itself naturally to writing, which makes it difficult to write about. I have often tried writing about Calcutta; each one of those attempts has introduced me to my literary limitations. It is part Kafka and part Dickens, and if one employed a fair bit of imagination and perhaps a magical mirror that reflected desire, one can see Rowling, shining through the film of soot, the wires, the despair, and the bureaucracy that have become a part of the landscape, like someone deliberately conjured the grime to mask the magic. 

Aaria, like many others, shared a toxic relationship with the city. It is bad for you and you are aware of it; a mathematical paradox that cannot be solved conclusively, yet it holds some compelling attraction that you cannot walk away from. The origins of this convoluted romance lay in a dream.

Aaria, tried to put it into words once, at a discussion happening whilst the seven were sprawled on some green coloured benches on their campus. This conversation was a precursor to many a debates about Calcutta over the years - whether it was more Kafka or Dickens, whether it was better or worse for rains - of course without any conclusions, which meant more debates. It also instilled in them the practice of trying to view Calcutta sans the murk, crowd, and chaos. When you can do that it will drive you to madness; Calcutta has this eldritch beauty. 

 “I am there, standing still, looking up at a building with a glass façade. It is a high rise, it dwarfs me. It is a bird’s eye-view of a sky-scarper and myself in a deserted lane. In the dream I have this feeling that I was being chased, and I turned into an alley, and via that enter this deserted lane, which houses the scintillating building with the glass façade. It is resplendent; all the lights are on – white lights behind black glass, a glowing aura, breaking the black. Then the melody plays,” said Aaria. 

“Then Alice went down the rabbit hole,” remarked Adrita. 

“Chased, though you never actually see the chase; right? Well that would have been an improvement – a more exciting dream than merely standing in front of a building,” Ritika pointed out snidely. 

“Though Ritika, this is a recurring dream or image, whatever, the point being that the chase would be recurring as well. Aria’s dream comes from her brain, which is aware of the fact that she would never run so much,” Anwesha chipped in. 

“It would make a good cinematic sequence, though. The sudden change in pace – the excitement of a chase, the abrupt turn, and then a pause - you should also witness a crime though, a dark corner in the dazzlingly lit building, an open pane and a man shoves another out,” said Pritha. “It is interesting though that you can remember the dream and not the melody.”

“I am sure I will know it if I hear it, but I cannot recall it, name it, or identify it,” Aaria replied.

Mitali was dismissive. “This cannot be in Calcutta. The city is uninitiated to the concept of deserted lanes. Where are the hawkers?” 

“It is nighttime.”

“Their sealed shacks then.”

Aaria was convinced that it was a building in Calcutta. No other city could become the stage for her recurring dream. 

Adrita, was deep in thought and had let go off the conversation, an earnest observation followed her silence, “I want to walk around Calcutta at 2 A.M., when every stray element has been locked up and tucked away, and the city gets to be itself. The beautiful buildings. Have you seen Rani Rashomoni’s House. There is a garbage dump beside it now, and many many hawkers, but stand there at night and imagine what it was like, when this building dominated the landscape, with only lights around it.” She paused, as if she had trespassed somewhere off limits to her. She abruptly continued, “College Street is held together by magic, I believe. It would all topple over otherwise, all the books. Doesn’t it feel like that? That if you moved a book and disturbed the magic, it would all come crumbling down.”

“It is appalling that we speak of the former as adventure and the latter as fantasy,” observed Ritika.

Then came the sprinklers. The college gardeners would tend to the field after 5 P.M. Most of the students would leave by then. Not everyone though. Some would park themselves firmly onto the green coloured benches, some on the stony steps beneath the sturdy arched columns, characteristic of old colonial buildings, and others still along the many turns and corners. Our seven would always linger back – their film studies class, was after all disparagingly placed in the 2 P.M. – 4 P.M. slot, and would seldom conclude within that time. The gardeners would wage war on the lingerers and the loiterers - they would try to hose them away. 

After being hosed away from the general area around the green coloured benches, they had taken refuge on the audi-steps, but quickly decided to begin the long commute to the metro station on Park Street, to try and be there by the pre-rush hour period. Pre-rush hour is a category of time, in Metro Railway parlance, when there are about 5541 people in every coach. ‘Not-rush hour’ is too broad a category to clearly describe the complex hour-human equation of public transit systems; the classification needs more sub-categories. Then they met the dog-lady.

“You will fail your next examination,” cursed the gaunt, grey haired, ethereal woman, so advanced in years that time had given up on her. She would attempt to get strangers and stragglers on both sides of the college gate to concern themselves with stray dogs; and if they couldn’t find the empathy, then the money. The unimaginative minds that craft college parables of caution, had named her dog-lady; and today her wrath knew no bounds, which meant that prophecies of eternal damnation awaited them that refused the dogs their dues - something she thought was condign punishment, given the graveness of the folly. The seven were trying to run away from her, in their bid to put some distance between themselves and the pronouncements of doom, and in the confusion, Mitali, who was not agile enough, and hence was being pulled by Anwesha, fell face forward in the middle of the road, at the Park Street and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road juncture. The screech of cars suddenly halting was followed by a resounding silence, which was followed by shrill laughter. 

Aaria, fared poorly in the next exam.